257 restarts into one of the harder levels of Trials Fusion and it is obvious that the developers at RedLynx have managed to maintain the compulsive charm of their motorbike racing game.

If you've played a Trials game before you'll know broadly what to expect; 2D race tracks peppered with explosions and obstacles. Difficulty builds gradually until you realise you're swearing under your breath and hitting 'restart from last checkpoint' for the 258th time with one of the development team grinning over your shoulder.

But alongside the familiar you'll find some new features. There's the FMX physics-based trick system, in-level challenges, a gorgeous futuristic world setting and links to Trials Frontier - the series' first mobile outing.

Each track contains three challenges to keep the player exploring. On one level, igniting your bike exhaust propels you through flaming rings in the air. In another, flinging yourself into a cactus and holding on to it alters the track. In a third, backing into a hole in the ice lands you in a penguin's fireplace.

Other tracks showcase some of the possibilities of the level editor. For example, there's an infinite level in Fusion which randomly generates a new stretch of track for each completed checkpoint.

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In this level, provided you keep completing the tracks, the game will keep generating new ones. Alternatively you could investigate a minigame where you launch your rider flailing into the air with the aim of landing him as far down a ski ramp as possible.

The level editor provided in the game is the same one used by the team at RedLynx to construct each stage, so penguin home invasion and never-ending tracks are all possible to create yourself.

There's also the fact that the community will likely use the tools to take Trials Fusion in curious new directions - the level editor in Trials Evolution could be used to create a first-person shooter, after all.

Given you'd recognise the basic formula from earlier games in the Trials franchise, you'd be forgiven for wondering why a new game - albeit a very pretty one - is necessary. We were pondering much the same and asked producer Kim Lahti what prompted the studio to create Fusion.

"The time is always right for another Trials game, but being part of Ubisoft we had the chance for the first time to really do a multiplatform Trials game," he told Digital Spy. (Trials will be launching simultaneously across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC.)

Lahti is keen to explain that Fusion will be the biggest Trials game so far at launch but that the team has an extensive roadmap for post-launch developments such as content for track creators, events, content packs and so on.

"[We're] really being inspired by the next gen idea that you should have these updates coming and games like Minecraft which really successfully kept on building the game.

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"We know our game has high retention and we know that players will stick in the game so why not serve them by continuing to build the game?"

An area of potential collaboration is online multiplayer. The versus mode introduced in Trials Evolutionhas been scrapped, but could return in some form later.

Multiplayer is still a core part of Trials Fusion however, with both the asynchronous multiplayer which involves friend leaderboards and ghosts to compete with on the tracks, and a local multiplayer for up to four riders.

Local multiplayer remains not quite as enjoyable as the main game. At some points it was impossible to see your character behind another and what you hoped was a perfect landing turned out to be your rider faceplanting on the track.

While the game attempts to counter this a little by changing which lane you're in each time you race, it's not a perfect remedy.

Trials Fusion's FMX trick mode will introduce challenges and more than a little showboating to the game.

Trials is a physics-based game so the FMX (freestyle motocross) mode is physics-based rather than relying on triggering animations. That means there's also no need for button presses. You use one stick to control the bike's position and the other to control the rider's legs, contorting them into mid-air poses.

"When I rotate it the legs are not stiff because it's controlled by physics, it's not an animation," explains Lahti. "That makes it really a bit different from a lot of other games."

There's a practice zone which keeps you permanently airborne as you learn the moves, then you can take what you've learned to use in the game. Particular levels use FMX to different effect. For example, one relies on you keeping your rider's adrenaline levels high by continually performing, chaining and landing tricks.

The tricks themselves change depending on the orientation of the bike. When the bike is the right way up and you manage to get the rider hovering parallel above it you've pulled off a superman. If you do the same but upside down it's now an underdog.

Trials Fusion will be available from April 16 on PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.